Reporters on the Job

August 10, 2005

• Prefers Fresh Tear Gas: Correspondent Mike Ceaser has covered Venezuela for several years, so he's witnessed many political demonstrations in Caracas, and more than one that has been broken up by police firing tear gas (page 1).

"Last year, after reports that protesters had been fired on with tear gas from dangerously close range, Mike met with a group of Venezuelans who had collected some of the empty tear-gas canisters fired at them. "There were guidelines for use printed on them, and expiration dates. Some of the older canisters were US-made, and well beyond their expiration date. Some were made in Venezuela. It does make you wonder how safe it is to fire an old canister, and the quality of the gas inside," he says.

• Global Citizen: When Nachammai Raman was last in Singapore, she was a teenager. Her family lived there for five years. Reporting today's story about the tiny nation's shift in economic strategy (this page) brought back memories of her family members coming to visit. "We used to get tons of relatives visiting from India then because Singapore was a shopper's paradise. I'm surprised at how expensive things are now relative to India," she says.

"I definitely don't feel at home in Singapore anymore. I'm too opinionated for Singapore. The only thing that I appreciate here is how easily you can cross the roads, unlike in India," she says. Having lived in India, the US, France, and Malaysia too, she's not sure which country is home. "India is my parents' home. I guess the metaphor that best describes my situation is that I'm like a cellphone whose SIM card is changed often. I charge and function internationally."